


Living Together

by tanzertime



Series: Life on Earth [2]
Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Domestic, Living Together, M/M, Making Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-12 05:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanzertime/pseuds/tanzertime
Summary: Ford and Arthur go on their toughest adventure yet: navigating living together without driving each other fucking crazy.Continuation of Settling for Inbetween, which (tldr) is an au where Earth isn’t destroyed and Ford accepts living there. And also they move in together and kiss. Its weirdly paced and 11ch but this ones one shots and still weirdly paced so yknow go nuts





	1. The Spat Heard 'Round the Apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and Ford have an argument.

Ford heard the door slam, shortly followed by an umbrella being thrown onto the coffee table and the sound of someone throwing themselves onto the couch and groaning. 

He peeked around the corner of the kitchen, stopping mid-chew to take in the image of Arthur Dent on his couch. Arthur was soaking wet, still in his coat (which was now sporting a massive coffee stain), arms crossed over his eyes, and making a sound comparable to a death rattle. The umbrella on the table was horribly mangled, which, when paired with the deluge outside, explained the wetness of his coat. Ford swallowed his sandwich and prepared for the biggest challenge of life on Earth: dealing with humanity’s various neuroses. 

“Hey, Arthur,” He began, cautiously stepping around the corner of the kitchen. “You’re here late. Have a good day?”

“Does it look like it?” Arthur growled, wrestling off his coat and depositing it next to him on the couch. He looked at it and sighed, holding it out towards Ford.

Ford took it, then grabbed the umbrella and worried the little metal joints. 

“Don’t bother,” Arthur grumbled. “Just toss it.”

“Looks like you had fun out there,” Ford joked, hanging the umbrella beside the coat despite his request. “Threw caution to the wind and went dancing in the rain, yeah?”

“No,” Arthur grumbled, reaching for the remote. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ford replied, internally sighing in relief. He settled into the couch, immediately trying to burrow into Arthur’s side, still working on his sandwich. 

Arthur grumbled and scooted away. “Not now.”

Ford, a little less excited about this turn of events, nevertheless scooted to the other side of the couch and settled in longways. He crossed his legs and popped his feet up onto Arthur’s lap, settling in. 

“Not  _ now,  _ Ford --” Arthur snapped, a little more bite in his voice this time. He pushed Ford’s feet off of him, and Ford had to shuffle back to stay on the couch. 

“Alright, alright, Arthur, no need to be so rough,” he teased, still futility trying to save the mood. 

Arthur didn’t respond, pursing his lips as he flipped to the cricket match.

For a few moments, the only noise in the room was the soft commentary of the game and the sound of Ford chewing his peanut-butter sandwich. 

_ “Ford.” _

“Mm?” he hummed, mouth stuck shut.

“Quieter,” Arthur said, exasperated. “...Please,” he added after a moment. 

“Right,” Ford managed. He smudged away some of the peanut butter stuck in the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. “S’peanut butter, is all. S’hard to chew quiet.”

“I’ve asked you to not chew with your mouth open,” Arthur muttered, rubbing over his eyes. “I’m starving. Do we have anything substantial? Like… a meal?”

“Erm…” Ford glanced at the kitchen, remembering eating Arthur’s leftovers earlier. “No, I don’t think so. We can order in?”

“Don’t bother, I don’t want to send anyone out in this storm.”

Thunder rumbled outside, and Ford stood and crossed to the kitchen. “Maybe a cup of tea, yeah?” 

He turned back to see Arthur’s face had softened considerably. “...Yes, actually. A cup of tea would be fantastic.”

“Sure,” Ford replied, pulling out the water tank of the electric kettle and setting it under the spout. 

“Nasty weather today,” Arthur muttered, finally picking at the knot of his tie. 

“I noticed,” Ford stated. 

Suddenly, Ford felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. There was a strange rumble, then lighting struck, flooding the flat in its’ harsh white light. Arthur recoiled, but before he could say anything, there was a boom of thunder so loud that the magnets fell off the fridge.

The lights flickered in protest, then shut out, plunging the two of them into darkness. 

“Ford!” Arthur shouted, hastily throwing the blanket aside and struggling to his feet. “Ford!”

“Arthur, Arthur, baby, calm down,” Ford laughed, moving to the doorway of the kitchen. “We’re inside, you know that, right?”

“Yes, well…” Arthur stood, looking more than a little disheveled now, with his wet hair and half-tied tie. “I don’t know, maybe the lightning… I don’t know, just… got inside, or …”

Ford laughed, patting him on the cheek. “Tough guy, gonna fight the lightning for me?”

Arthur huffed, leaning against the fridge. “I was scared, alright? No need to be an ass about it.”

“It was a  _ joke, _ ” Ford replied, giving him a little punch on the shoulder. “Unwind a bit, yeah?”

“Ford, I had a  _ horrible  _ day, alright?”

“Well, do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want me to distract you from it?”

“No, I --”

“Go back in time and fix it?”

“What I  _ want,  _ Arthur snapped with a shocking amount of threat, “Is my  _ tea. _ ”

“...Fine, yeah, alright,” Ford mumbled, reaching back and hitting the switch on the kettle. 

There was complete silence. Ford turned to the kettle. His eyes jumped from the switch, to the chord, to where the cord plugged in to the wall. 

There were a few more moments of silence. 

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Arthur said, terse, after a moment. 

“Come on, Arthur, really? You’re going to blame me for this?” Ford shot, fussing with the switch like it would do anything. 

“Who said I’m blaming you?”

“You did!”

“When, Ford? When did I say anything against you?”

“Well, you didn’t say it, per say,” Ford admitted, “but I feel it was implied.”

“Well, Ford, maybe consider why that was,” Arthur shot back, backing out of the kitchen. 

“What do you mean? I tried to take your mind off of it, did what you said, even got up and made you tea --” he glanced at the machine. “ _ Tried  _ to make you tea --”

“How about a, '' How was your day, Arthur?’ or maybe, ‘gee, darling, you look tired. The good news is, I made dinner for once in my life, so how about you relax and say what’s on your mind?’”

“You said you didn’t want to talk about it!”

“Yes, but something was  _ clearly  _ wrong!”

“And was I supposed to pry?”

“ _ YES,”  _ Arthur shouted, exasperated. “ _ Yes,  _ you were supposed to pry, because the bus was late, and this absolute harpy spilled coffee on me as I was getting on, and my boss yelled at me for being late and ‘looking schluby,’ which, how is that my fault, I’m living in a greasy flat downtown with a man who keeps his old porno rags on the  _ windowstill  _ and has the orginizational skills of a fucking wild animal!”

Ford stared back at him, for once in his life, stunned into silence.

“So yeah, Ford, just --  _ ugh,”  _ Arthur groaned, rubbing over his eyes. “Nevermind. Nevermind. I’m -- I’m sorry. I know you need direct communication, more, because your people didn’t invent sarcasm or something, just…” he sighed and threw his hands up in a universal sign for surrender. “I had a rough day.”

“Yeah, sounds like it,” Ford replied, venomous. “There, that was sarcasm. Good enough for you?”

“... I’m sorry, Ford, just...” Arthur struggled for an end to the sentence, then gave up with a tired sigh. He opened the fridge and glanced inside, pursing his lips at the bare shelves. “Oh, Jesus, we forgot to go shopping again…”

Ford didn’t respond.

Arthur sighed and collected a block of cheese and some crackers. “Good night. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” he turned and headed towards the bedroom, then looked back at Ford, still glaring at him from the kitchen. “...Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

“You know what?” Ford replied, not missing a beat. “I think I do.”

 

The next morning, Ford woke up to the sunlight streaming through his window. With no other lights in the room to contest it, it was hard to ignore. He was about to pull his pillow over his head when he heard a loud, grating  _ miaow  _ from the floor. 

“Not now,” Ford groaned, one arm dropping off to feebly shoo the pest away. 

Vicky, undaunted, leapt directly onto his back and started kneading. 

“Does your owner not feed you? Is that it?”

Vicky miaowed. Unfortunately, cat was too rudimentary of a language for the babelfish to pick up on, so he figured he wouldn’t know the answer until he got up and checked for himself. 

Begrudgingly, Ford rolled over and got to his feet, slipping on his slippers and drowsily making his way to the kitchen, Vicky’s paws padding behind him the entire way. He squinted at the blank clock on the microwave, cursing as he remembered that the power was still out, then turned to her bowl. He sighed, leaning down and grabbing the bowl before giving it a little shake and setting it right back down. Vicky descended on it like a creature starved, and Ford considered punting her into the stratosphere. 

Just as he was turning to flop down on the couch and paw through one of his magazines for the upteenth time, he noticed the plate on the counter. Still bleary-eyed, he picked it up and squinted. 

Two fried eggs and sausage. He couldn’t believe his eyes. With an inquisitive poke, he discovered that they were even still warm. 

He glanced at the counter, finding a note. Grabbing a fork, he speared one of the sausages before leaning against the counter and picking the paper up. He settled in, taking a bite as he started to read. 

_ Ford,  _

_ Turns out we forgot that you have a gas stove. So, surprise! Breakfast not-in-bed, because I feel like waking you up would undo any good will the food would harbour.  _

_ I wanted to say I’m sorry about the fight last night. The whole reason I bought that house a little ways out of town was because city life makes me nervous, and now that I’m living here again it’s been a hard adjustment. I took it out on you, which is horrible, because you’re the absolute best thing about this city.  _

_ I love you. Call me later, and don’t make plans, because drinks are on me tonight. _

_ Arthur.  _

Ford spent a long time blankly staring at that little sheet of paper. After a moment, he set it aside and buried his head in his hands. “ _ Arrthuuuuurrrrr,”  _ he groaned.

Just like the man! Just when Ford wanted to be mad at him the most!

Vicky weaved between his ankles and he stooped to pick her up. She sniffed at the sausage and  _ mrrped.  _

“What say you, Vicky?”

The cat batted at the sausage, which he barely managed to pull out of the way. 

“S’not what we’re talking about, Vic.” He jammed the rest of it into his cheek like a particularly carnivorous hamster. This gave him an idea for how to solve things, which he quickly demoted to plan B. Maybe it would supplement the eventual plan A, but Arthur just wasn’t that simple. He wouldn’t just settle for intimacy, no, Arthur Dent had to have  _ emotional  _ intimacy, which Ford found equally charming and inconvenient. 

Thoughtfully chewing, or as much as one can be thoughful while chewing a hunk of meat the side of their fist, Ford looked back to the slightly crestfallen Vicky. “Any ideas? Because I have a very stupid one.”

Vicky batted at one of the curls that had fallen out of his wrap. 

“Stupid plan it is,” Ford declared, letting the cat jump to the floor. 

 

“When on Earth did you even  _ have  _ one of your… machines over at my house?”

“I don’t know, babe, but where else is it gonna be?” Ford asked from the payphone on their block. Twelve hours, now, since the power blew, and the landlord hadn’t even sent out a note. Typical. 

“I don’t know, maybe you spent the night at someone else’s?”

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one I can find without scouring every club in Europe.”

“Gross.”

“Hey, Arthur, you picked me,” Ford shrugged.

_ “Fine,” _ Arthur sighed. “The keys in that cup in the dresser. Should have a little tag with the locker number. Don’t get caught pulling alien technology out of my old mattress, alright?”

“Aw, you think I can’t be discreet?”

“Yes.”

Ford’s lips pursed as he concentrated for a moment. “...Sarcasm?”

“No.”

“Love you too, baby.”

On the other side of the line, he heard a sigh that was equally long-suffering and endearing. “Love you. Call me when the power’s back.”

“Don’t count on it,” Ford muttered as he set the phone back in the receiver. Alright, step one done. He dug through his pockets for another coin, glancing at the number scrawled messily on his wrist. After a few rings, a rather confused voice answered. 

“Hello?”

“Eddie, how’ve you been, buddy?”

“Wh… Fine, fine, is this Ford?” 

“Got it right, my man,” he returned, chipper as a salesman before they’ve realized how miserable their little existence is. “Hey, remember how I covered your tab at spoons for two weeks in a row?”

“Uhm,” Eddie replied in a tone that definitely implied that he remembered. 

“Glad to hear. You still have that truck, yeah?”

 

Ford was laying flat on his back, dripping with sweat. No fan. No elevator. No nothing, save for a lot of manual labor and a  _ lot _ of snarky comments from Eddie, who was long gone. But it was done, goddamn it, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t fairly proud of himself. 

With an immense effort, he sat up, looking to the little spot by the window which had previously been occupied by a small mountain of boxes and old magazines. Now, proudly framed by those same boxes but pushed to the side a bit, Arthur’s old table sat beside his little bookcase, all still dusty from months of sitting in storage. The table was set with the two nicer chairs from Arthur’s house and the few proper plates Ford had bothered to buy. Mopping away the sweat on his brow, he struggled to his feet, walking over and sweeping off some of the dust from the shelf. He’d let Arthur unpack the books, he was finicky about that kind of thing.

His eyes traveled to the windowsill, where the offending magazines had been removed and replaced with a small collection of jars. In each of these jars was a flower. Well, what Ford hoped qualified as flowers. 

Not wanting to spend any of the money he didn’t have, he’d had to … improvise. Some were from the nearby park. Some were from cracks in the sidewalk, which he figured Arthur would find romantic, or something. Most of them, if he was being completely honest, were stolen from whatever small business had the misfortune of trying to get into the summer spirit. He’d received a lot of odd looks throughout the day. He picked up one jar that housed some little yellow flowers that he’d thought were quite endearing.

Arthur had always wanted a garden, anyways. Turning over the jar, Ford found himself smiling. Maybe he saw the appeal, if he was being completely honest with himself. 

Settling the jar back in place, Ford pushed back the hair sticking to his forehead. Alright, now all he had to do was shower, change into something nice, knock on the landlord’s door and gripe at him about the power, order some thai -- 

He froze as he heard the lock click. Head wheeling towards the door, he watched in mute horror as Arthur Dent arrived home an hour earlier than usual. 

They stared at each other, Arthur cradling a massive paper bag in one arm and stringing along three smaller ones in the other, all of them packed to the rim with groceries. After a long moment, he cleared his throat. 

“Thought you closed on Fridays,” he said, meekly. 

“Traded Eliza for her Sunday shift,” Ford replied, suddenly very aware of how disgusting he looked. “I thought you weren’t due home for another hour.”

“... I get off early on Fridays,” Arthur said after a moment. He craned his neck around Ford, looking at the scene behind him. “Ford, is that --”

“Oh, oh, uhm --” Ford stepped out of the way, presenting the setup with a little flourish of the arm. “Welcome home, Arthur.”

Arthur’s brow furrowed as he processed the scene before him, and he stepped forward, setting the groceries aside. Slowly, the look of confusion melted into one of disbelief, then joy. He turned to Ford, a smile creeping onto his face. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“This!” He said, indicating the table. “Get it all out of storage, drive half an hour both ways, lug it all upstairs --”

“Oh, this.” Ford looked back at the table, giving it a little knock with his knuckle. “Yeah, I did, actually. It’d be odd if anyone else had. Who did you think --”

He was cut off by Arthur grabbing him and kissing him, which, hey, was perfectly fine by him. 

Arthur pulled back after a moment, still holding Ford’s face. “You really do like me, huh?”

“You ask a lot of obvious questions, you know that, right?”

Arthur deigned to ignore the comment and moved to the windowsill, where he saw the improvised garden. “What is…”

“I mean, you said you wanted a garden, right?” Ford replied as Arthur carefully picked up a jar with some pretty pink thing he’d lifted from the tiny lot in front of a bank. “I know it’s a bit cramped here, and the whole ‘landlord doesn’t care if we live or die’ thing can be kind of demoralizing, but I figured… y’know, bring a little of the suburbs to the city, I suppose.”

Arthur delicately ran a finger over the petals. “Where did you get these…?”

“Bank.”

“The bank?”

“The front of it, more.”

Arthur laughed, head shaking in slight disbelief. “If it was anyone else, I’d say they were kidding.”

“Didn’t really have money to spend on flowers,” he admitted. “Had to improvise.”

“These are all from the bank, then?”

“No. Most of them are from the park.”

Arthur replaced the flowers and reached for another jar, this one containing what looked like just dirt. “What’s this one, then?”

“Little, oh, you know, the little things with the hats?”

“Acorns?”

“That.”

“Ford, we aren’t going to have room for a tree,” Arthur chuckled, looking up at him from the jar.

“Well… I mean, what, am I just supposed to live here forever?”

Arthur blinked, confusion crossing his face.

“Cities fine, when you’re moving around a lot,” Ford admitted, not quite looking him in the eye. “But, you know, recently, with me accepting that I’m probably on Earth for good, and all of those nasty revelations about my apparent value as an editor --”

“Ford, I told you, I’m sure they’re --”

“No pep talk needed, really, Arthur.” He cleared his throat, still avoiding the other’s eyes. “Where was I? Right, moving around. Well, I’m not moving around much anymore. Cities expensive, you know? Been paying a lot of money to a landlord who hasn’t even posted a note up saying when the power will be back. Maybe I can be in the city, you know… sometimes.” He nudged a magazine that had fallen to the ground with the toe of his shoe. “Dunno. You seemed awfully attached to that house, figured it might be nice to see what all the fuss is about.”

He was met with silence. 

After a long moment, he brought himself to check in on why Arthur hadn’t said anything. Part of him worried that it was because he’d left in disgust, hearing him say something so horribly soft. Another part worried that he’d simply died standing up, as often was the case whenever Ford got terribly attached to a romantic partner. 

Luckily, what he found was Arthur moving in for a hug.

“Oh, thank god,” Ford said after the initial shock of being pulled in so tightly. “I thought you were going to laugh at me.”

“Why on Earth would I laugh at you?” Arthur asked, pulling back. He took Ford’s face in his hands, which he secretly liked a lot. “This is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me, and some of the  _ best  _ news I’ve ever heard.”

“Really? This is the sweetest?” Ford asked, a little confused. “What about that thing I do with --”

“-- The most  _ considerate  _ thing you’ve ever done,” Arthur corrected before Ford finished that thought. “I can’t believe I was so snippy with you last night. I’m sorry, Ford, really, you’re…” Arthur sighed, utterly content, and kissed him on the cheek. “I like you.”

“I’d hope so, at this point.”

Arthur laughed and ruffled his hair, finally pulling away. “Good thing you set up a table. I’m making chilli.” 

“ _ Wow,  _ you know me well,” Ford said as Arthur started towards the kitchen. “Need help?”

“No,” Arthur replied, recollecting his bags. “But I do need you to shower.”

Ford found himself smiling as the other man disappeared into the kitchen.

Before he’d landed on Earth, he’d spent many nights in any manner of apartment, boarding room, motel, street corner -- varying from the finest homes in the universe to places that gave him some pretty unspeakable venereal diseases, despite having slept alone that night. The finest place he had ever stayed, however, was a room in a Ganx-Frxxian palace, which he had charmed his way into by seducing a travelling dignitary. Room service, beds that scanned your body and found the perfect molecular makeup of mattress to suit you, the works.

Now, standing here, he’d have traded a thousand nights in that palace for one night more with Arthur. The incredible part? He didn’t even have to. 

So he smiled, shook his head in disbelief of his own dumb luck, and went to shower.


	2. If We're Talking in Theories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur needs to have a very, very, VERY important chat with Ford.

Ford Prefect was trailing around a piece of string while Vicky half-heartedly chased it in the way that old, fat cats go about all of their physical activities. He zipped it out of her reach just as she was about to get a good paw on it and earned himself a  _ miaow  _ of protest. He grinned at her and scratched her ears, scooping the protesting ball of ginger fur into his arms before rolling onto his back and giving her a thorough tossling on the head. All in all, a very normal, relaxed time for Ford. This was not the situation for Arthur, who had been tapping his heel for thirty minutes straight.

“What’s family like on Betelgeuse seven?” Arthur asked from behind his newspaper, apropos of nothing.

Ford froze mid-ruffle. He processed the information, ran it through his sarcasm scanner, and came up with no answers as to why Arthur would care. “Erm… good, I guess. I’d three great moms. Four dads, well, three eventually, but… you know.” Ford turned back to the cat. “I’ve told you about them, haven’t I?”

“No, no, I meant — not  _ your _ family, just, you know …  _ family,”  _ Arthur said, gesturing vaguely and explaining nothing. 

“You mean… actually, no, I can’t guess. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Okay, look.” Arthur said, settling back into the couch. “Here on Earth? Mom, dad, two kids, a dog. What’s the equivalent on Betelgeuse?”

Ford thought for a moment. “Erm… I don’t know, there’s really not a standard…”

“Just give me a number,” Arthur said, squirming agitatedly in his seat.

“Three,” Ford finally said. “I had a fairly big family, but there are bigger. Had a classmate with ten parents and fourteen siblings. Couple of pets. He actually had a Grabomile, which I was always jealous of. It was like a dog, but blue, and it had six arms and spoke a little Beautelgeusian --”

“Mm-hmm. Interesting, right,” Arthur said in the tone of voice a man who was being explained the (albeit interesting) internal wirings of the bomb about to blow him to bits so small the atoms would be confused. “That’s wonderful.”

“... Is there something wrong, Arthur?” Ford asked, finally sitting back up. He leaned against the wall, still scratching the ears of a violently purring Vicky. “You’re acting strange. Are you doing that thing where you really want to talk about something, but you’re scared to because you never learned to properly express yourself?”

“No,” Arthur said, in a way that sounded like he really wanted to talk about something but was scared to because he’d never learned to properly express himself.

“What is it,” Ford sighed, setting Vicky aside and settling in for a long chat.

“Nothing, just…” Arthur trailed off, then fluffed the newspaper he had been valiantly pretending to read. “Are you, and this is theoretical, don’t get… I don’t know, confused, or worried, or anything, but… you don’t  _ need  _ a third to be happy, right?”

Ford blinked. It’s often noted that this is something he rarely does, so the author feels no need to retread that ground. “Do you have someone in mind?”

“Oh, no, no, actually -- I have the opposite,” Arthur reassured, intensely interested in an article about… oh, he didn’t know, he couldn’t read and talk at the same time. “I have… nobody in mind. I’m thinking about who would fill the third slot in this --” he gestured between the two of them, “and I think I’d like it if  _ nobody  _ did that. Is… is that alright?”

Ford, after a moment, shrugged. “Sure. I didn’t have any ambitions to change that, anyways.”

“... You weren’t worried about having, I don’t know, some kind of traditional family?”

“No.”

“You know, two… erm, three? Or no, it’d be… uh, two daddies, a mommy… some kids,” he dawdled, adding in the last two words in such a way that you could barely tell they had happened. 

“No, no, I’m fine with this. See, really the reason for threesomes back home is that we’ve a special flange that, when you have one person working on  _ that,  _ and another is --”

“STOP,” Arthur demanded, stomach turning.

“Well, it’s mostly a reproductive thing,”  Ford finished, skipping the nastier details in the hopes of keeping Arthur from vomiting. “Don’t see why you’re so skittish now, Arthur. You were a big fan last night.”

Arthur lowered the paper. He looked like he had an awful lot of questions, but elected to tuck them away for another day. “Well, I’m glad that’s settled, then.” he fluffed the paper and found a new article to ignore while worrying himself sick about the very topic he’d just tried to dispel. 

“... This is one of those things I’m supposed to press you on, isn’t it?” Ford asked after a moment.

Arthur sighed and set the paper aside. “Do you want kids?”

Ford blinked again. Once more, there’s no need to retread this. 

To be entirely honest, he’d never even considered the question. Kids? That was something for people who settled down and spent more than half of their waking hours sober. Ford pursed his lips as he realized he’d become one of those people. Oh, well then. Time to give  _ that  _ some thought again. 

“You can say no,” Arthur said, squirming in his seat as the silence drew out. 

“I’m not saying no,” Ford replied, gathering the cat into his lap again. “I’m thinking.”

“Because I can understand why you might not want them,” Arthur continued, apparently having not heard what Ford had said the moment before. “I know you like to live pretty fast and loose. I mean, you’re considering taking that job as a bartender, yeah? Which I think you should do, by the way. I get the feeling that you’d enjoy it a lot more than being a barista.” He stared at Ford, who stared back. “So… that’s my opinion on that, I guess.” Arthur muttered after a moment of thick silence. 

“That’s nice, baby,” Ford said idly, sitting back against the wall and scratching Vicky under the chin. “I’m thinking about the kids thing for now.”

“Right, sorry.” Arthur sat for a moment more, then realized it was silent and got uncomfortable again. “You need silence to think?”

“No, but it helps,” Ford said, still clearly lost in thought. 

“Okay, then, I’m going to make dinner,” Arthur said, setting aside the paper and power-walking to the kitchen. Once inside, he pulled a pan down and stared into it. 

Ford had only extremely minor telepathic abilities, but he heard a tiny scream from the kitchen. He elected to shut it out and keep muling over the topic. Arthur would scream with his mouth if there was truly an issue that needed resolving.

Arthur made himself a cup of tea and made them both some eggs, which were going to be sunny-side up, but became scrambled after a few attempts. When he poked his head out around the corner, he saw that Ford was still thinking. It had been five minutes, and the man was still staring dead on into middle distance, one hand methodically stroking over a purring Vicky as he sat in thought.

Shakily, he took a sip of his tea and dug through the fridge for something else to make so he wouldn’t have to go out there and sit in that horrible, suffocating silence. Well, Ford could come get him when he was done thinking. This was him being a good boyfriend, and definitely not avoidance behavior. 

He told himself that again as he pulled out the little book of recipes he’d bought to “challenge himself” (ie, hint to Ford that maybe they could eat something besides take out and microwaved meals) and found the recipe that would take the longest.

This was definitely NOT avoidance behavior.

Between making sauces, cooking chicken, roasting vegetables, and restarting several key steps in the process due to  _ egregious  _ missteps, it had been an hour. The tikka masala was sitting in its bowl, staring him down, quickly cooling as he sat in the kitchen and twiddled his thumbs. Any moment now, Ford would walk in and say exactly what he wanted to hear. What that was, exactly, Arthur didn’t know, but he figured he’d know when he heard it. 

Screwing up his courage, he peeked around the corner of the kitchen. 

Ford was still staring into middle distance, hand making the motion of idly petting Vicky while the cat cleaned herself from her perch on the kitchen table. 

Arthur whipped back around the corner and flattened himself against the wall. An hour. A full hour. He had to be fucking with him. Or, maybe, he wasn’t. Maybe this was some alien thing. Maybe he was entering a deep meditative state so he could access some kind of power and… well, he hadn’t gotten that far, but something  _ bad.  _ Maybe he was beaming up to Beautelgeuse. Maybe he was telling the houseplants embarassing stories about him. He didn’t have a very solid lock on what Ford’s powers were, but if anything looked to him like an alien charging up to ruin his life in a very specific way, it was this. 

Starting his third cup of tea, Arthur wiped his brow. The sweat was from cooking, he told himself. Definitely not the constant, pounding anxiety he was experiencing. 

He stared at the tikka masala and took a deep breath.  _ Okay,  _ he told himself, reaching for a spoon.  _ I can do this.  _

Walking out of the kitchen with two bowls, he set one on the ground next to Ford and settled in on the couch. Ford, unblinking as always, made no acknowledgment of this. Arthur fiddled with his masala, pushing it around with his fork and internally screaming for Ford to do anything except stare and phantomime petting a cat.

After another moment, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

_ “Ford,”  _ he barely kept himself from yelling, “are you still there?”

Ford blinked and looked down at his bowl. “Oh, you made dinner, thank you.”

“Mm-hm,” Arthur hummed. Everyone has met a chihuahua or other small dog that is so full of energy that it shakes. If Arthur had less area to dissipate this energy around, he would have been doing that exact thing. 

“So, I’ve thought about it,” Ford began, collecting his bowl and shoveling in a mouthful. “Sorry it took so long, I don’t do it very often.”

“Oh, no, no problem,” Arthur lied through his teeth.

“Mm. Mm! Arthur, you’re getting pretty good at this!” Ford praised around a mouthful of masala. “This from that book?”

“Wh -- thank you, yes, but Ford, are you done thinking about it?”

“Oh, yeah. And I’ve decided.”

“And you’ve decided on…?”

Ford gave him a confused look. “On the kids thing, Arthur, what else would I have been deciding on?”

Arthur mentally screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors, if they were psychically inclined. (They weren’t.) 

“Anyways, I’ve decided.” Ford shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“...Sure, why not?” Arthur repeated. The energy in his voice was an even toss up between ‘I love you, I’m so excited’ and ‘I’m going to bloody well fucking kill you.’

Ford wiped his mouth with his wrist and stood, settling in next to Arthur on the couch. “Yeah, I mean, I like kids well enough. I don’t know how we’d get a mix between us two here on Earth, but there’s a few ways of going about it up on Betelgeuse.” He speared a good bite, picking out some broccoli and carrots and continuing to explain something that would change their lives forever in a very nonchalant way. “That said, it’ll probably have two heads. Probably won’t be an issue, though.”

“Wh… why would it have two heads?”

“Everyone on betelgeuse does, something to do with the atmosphere.”

Arthur stared at him for a very long time.

Ford shoveled in another forkfull of masala. “Put your head right here,” he said through it, patting his shoulder. 

Arthur, slowly, did so. 

“Hey,” said an incredibly tiny voice emanating from what Arthur had always thought was just a strange bump.

Arthur sat back and set his food aside. “...Oh.”

“Yeah. So, you know, worst comes to worst, the kid will have that,” he continued, nonchalant. “I got the tiny head genes, it’s from my father’s side. And since you have the one-head genes, maybe it’ll… I don’t know, it’ll just be half a head. Just like, some eyes. Or a little mouth,” he said as he picked around for some chicken. “Dunno. Didn’t pay much attention to biology in school.”

Arthur continued to stare at him, completely blank. 

“Suppose we could adopt, as well,” Ford said after a moment. “But I don’t think folks here are too keen on it, yeah? So it’d have to be from Betelgeuse,” he continued. He reached under the coffee table and pulled up one of his signalers, dusting off the readout and switching it back on. This was his extra-strength signaler, one that he’d used for special occasions that always hiked his utilities bill and turned the lights off throughout the building. “Been keeping an eye on the planets lately, think I have a clear shot at home next week. I mean, with how things have been, it probably won’t work, ‘cause it hasn’t worked before, but I can give it another shot, if you’re really interested.”

Arthur blinked at him. After a moment, he swallowed hard. “I… I don’t think… I mean we can’t have kids  _ right this second,  _ I was just, uh … maybe a few years down the road, or…” he stared blankly at the signaler on the table, which Ford was now busily running maintenance on.”I mean, we’re speaking in pure theories here, you don’t know if we can get to your planet, I don’t know if we’d be able to get away with having a kid around in the first place — I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, attitudes here aren’t  _ too  _ positive…” he trailed off, searching for the next thing to say and just not finding it. 

“Well, if we’re speaking in theories, then doing all of that family shite with you would actually be pretty good by me. I mean, I pretty clearly like you a lot. And I’m pretty great as well. So, something like the two of us mixed together would be a pretty hoopy little frood, if you’ll excuse the localism. So, if we’re talking in theories, let’s test this one out, yeah?”

There was silence as Ford continued to tinker with the signaler. After nearly a full minute, he glanced up to make sure Arthur was still there. 

“You alright?” Ford asked the man whose jaw was hanging open like he was in the business of eating flies.

Arthur, after another long moment, laughed. It bubbled up out of him slowly, until he was leaning in and taking Ford’s face to kiss him. 

“I love you,” he said as he pulled back.

“I’d hope so,” Ford replied, “if you’re in the business of asking me about children.”

The rest of the night was spent planning a day trip on betelgeuse five. Ford didn’t often talk about his home planet for more than a few minutes at a time without ending up face down on the floor sobbing while Arthur patted his back and stroked his hair and muttered nice aphorisms about how things would work out and other things that probably weren’t true, but tonight, they spoke in a world completely theoretical, full of his hometown bars and local restaurants and childhood friends and all of the other tiny things one suddenly finds they miss horribly after being away from them for so long. 

And if, occasionally, one of them noted down a name that caught their ear, well, why not? It was all just theories anyways. 

And Arthur found himself grinning like the apes he was descended from. 

The exciting thing about theories, of course, was that there was always the off chance they might be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact about me is that when im stressed i write. please IGNORE my high output recently it is PURE COINCIDENCE and i am MENTALLY HEALTHY. also i am NOT projecting onto any characters who may or may not happen to be in a loving relationship. this is all NORMAL and i am NOT PROJECTING
> 
> anyways hope you enjoy nd if there's anything you wanna see... as always

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I wanted to keep working in the settling for inbetween universe :,) so I slammed this out! hope y'all are having a good summer :,)


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